The Core Pillars of Early Reading

Move, sing, and play your way through The Core Pillars of Early
Reading a workshop designed especially for teachers and parents who
want to build a strong pre-reading foundation using Open Reading’s
interactive, child-friendly strategies. Here, learning feels like
movement, music, curiosity, and joy, all working together to spark
literacy from the ground up.

This workshop supports two growing readers: Natural Readers, who often
start school with confident language and visual skills, and Acquired
Readers, who thrive through rhythm, reasoning, movement, problem-solving,
and auditory learning. Both groups can flourish just in different
ways and this approach honours that.

After more than 40 years teaching struggling readers, from age five all
the way into adulthood, we began to see a pattern. Their challenges with
reading weren’t failures at all, but signs that they’d never
been given the chance to master key pre-reading skills. Many arrived
already discouraged, frustrated, and deeply unsure of themselves. Our
workshop addresses these foundational gaps before they ever become
barriers.

Through years of listening, watching, and working closely with learners,
we identified a cluster of skills missing for many children entering
first grade—skills essential for reading success, yet often
overlooked:

• Recognizing basic geometric shapes to support letter recognition
• Understanding prepositions to identify sound placement in
words
• Hearing the difference between similar-sounding letters
• Knowing how to blend sounds into whole words
• Tracking smoothly across a flat page from left to right

In this workshop, we build reading readiness through movement, thinking,
and exploration. Children move from speech to print, from phonemic
awareness to phonics, with practices that feel natural, engaging, and
achievable not memorized and forgotten.

Some children our Natural Readers grasp these skills
intuitively. But Acquired Readers need another path, one that begins with
hands-on games, joyful interaction, and developmentally friendly
experiences. Imagine how powerful it would be if instead of struggling,
they began with success.

You’ll leave with simple strategies you can use immediately at home
or in the classroom. Every activity is designed to give children a
positive, active introduction to reading one that respects their
learning style and strengthens their foundation step by step.

During the workshop, we’ll explore techniques you can weave
seamlessly into early literacy programs for long-lasting growth and
confidence. You’ll also be introduced to Fletcher’s Place,
our free instructional video series at openreading.com, where children
continue building skills and eventually learn to read and spell over 300
words.

This is where reading begins- with joyful learning, confident
learners, and the early skills they truly need.